On March 1, 1932, Charles Augustus Lindbergh Jr., the 20-month-old son of colonel Charles Lindbergh and his wife, aviatrix and author Anne Morrow Lindbergh, was murdered after being abducted from his crib in the upper floor of the Lindberghs' home, Highfields, in East Amwell, New Jersey, United States. On May 12, the child's corpse was discovered by a truck driver by the side of a nearby road.
Robert Cosgrove Greenlease Jr. was a six-year-old from Kansas City, Missouri, United States, who was the victim of a kidnapping and homicide on September 28, 1953. His father, Robert Cosgrove Greenlease Sr., was a multi-millionaire auto dealer, and the demanded ransom payment was the largest in American history at the time.
Channon Gail Christian, aged 21, and Hugh Christopher Newsom Jr., aged 23, were from Knoxville, Tennessee, United States. They were kidnapped on the evening of January 6, 2007, when Christian's vehicle was carjacked. The couple were taken to a rental house. Both of them were raped, tortured, and murdered. Four males and one female were arrested, charged, and convicted in the case. In 2007, a grand jury indicted Letalvis Darnell Cobbins, Lemaricus Devall Davidson, George Geovonni Thomas, and Vanessa Lynn Coleman on counts of kidnapping, robbery, rape, and murder. Also in 2007, Eric DeWayne Boyd was indicted by a federal grand jury of being an accessory to a carjacking, resulting in serious bodily injury to another person and misprision of a felony. In 2018, Boyd was indicted on state-level charges of kidnapping, robbery, rape, and murder.
Choo Han Teck is a Singaporean judge of the Supreme Court. He was formerly a lawyer before his appointment to the court as a judge. It was revealed in 2021 that Choo was one of the defence lawyers representing Adrian Lim, the infamous Toa Payoh child killer who was executed in 1988 for charges of murdering a girl and boy as ritual sacrifices. In 1994, Choo also defended Phua Soy Boon, a jobless Singaporean who was hanged in 1995 for killing a moneylender.
The 1998 abduction of foreign engineers took place when four United Kingdom-based specialists were seized by unidentified Chechen gunmen in Grozny, the capital of the unrecognized secessionist Chechen Republic of Ichkeria (ChRI). After more than two months in captivity, all four men were found brutally murdered, reportedly following a failed rescue bid. As of 2022, no one has been tried in this case.
Dickran Mardivos Tevrizian Jr. is a retired United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Central District of California. Confirmed in 1985, he is the first United States federal judge of Armenian ancestry. He is currently a mediator and arbitrator with JAMS.
The SY Quest incident occurred in February 2011 when Somali pirates seized the American yacht SY Quest and four United States citizens. The United States Navy ordered the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise and three other ships to free the hostages. All four hostages were shot by their captors.
On May 14, 2015, three members of the Savopoulos family—Savvas, Amy, and their son Philip—as well as their housekeeper, Veralicia Figueroa, were killed at the Savopoulos home in Washington, D.C. The victims were held hostage for 19 hours, starting on May 13. Ten-year-old Philip was tortured in order to coerce $40,000 in cash from the family. The perpetrator(s) restrained them with duct tape before killing them, then set the house on fire. They all sustained blunt force trauma, and Philip was also stabbed.
Joseph Roy Metheny was an American serial killer and rapist from the Baltimore, Maryland area. While he claimed to have killed 13 people, sufficient evidence was only found to convict him of two murders. Research later confirmed 3 more victims, through matching his confessions to evidence.
On 6 June 1994, two Japanese tourists were robbed and attacked by two men in their shared room in the Oriental Hotel in Singapore. One of them was brutally assaulted and died, while the other survived. The case, known as the Oriental Hotel murder, was classified as murder by the police. The perpetrators were eventually caught 2 years later and they were subsequently sentenced to serve lengthy jail terms with caning for their part in the robbery and assault of the two tourists, as well as for unrelated offences committed before their arrests.
Wesley Ira Purkey was an American convicted murderer who was executed by the United States federal government for the January 1998 kidnapping, rape, and murder of 16-year-old Jennifer Long. Purkey confessed to the crime while serving a life sentence for the murder of 80-year-old Mary Ruth Bales, whom he beat to death with a claw hammer in October 1998.
Chan Seng Onn is a Singaporean judge who presently serves as a Senior Judge of the High Court of Singapore. Formerly a prosecutor, Chan had previously served as a High Court judge from 2007 to 2022.
Peter Weinberger was a one-month-old infant who was kidnapped for ransom on July 4, 1956, in New York state. The case gained national notoriety due to the circumstances of the kidnapping and the victim's family, as unlike many ransom victims, Weinberger was not from a wealthy and prominent family, but from a suburban middle class family.
Richard Gerald Jordan is an American man on death row in Mississippi for the 1976 murder of 34-year-old Edwina Marter, the wife of a bank executive. As of 2022, Jordan is the state's oldest and longest-serving death row inmate. Though he admitted to the crime and his guilt has never been seriously called into question, Jordan has filed multiple successful legal challenges to his sentence, and because of this, he has been sentenced to death four times.
Life imprisonment is a legal penalty in Singapore. This sentence is applicable for more than forty offences under Singapore law, such as culpable homicide not amounting to murder, attempted murder, kidnapping by ransom, criminal breach of trust by a public servant, voluntarily causing grievous hurt with dangerous weapons, and trafficking of firearms, in addition to caning or a fine for certain offences that warrant life imprisonment.
Chua Ser Lien was a Singaporean who, together with his accomplice Tan Ping Koon, kidnapped a seven-year-old girl during Christmas Day of 2003. The abduction was brief and witnessed by several people, one of whom gave chase to the pair. Both Chua and Tan, then aged 42 and 35 respectively, realised they were followed and released the girl at Tampines. However, the two kidnappers called the girl's father the following day and demanded S$1 million from him or they would hurt her family. The sum of S$70,000 was eventually agreed and paid to them before both their arrests on 27 December 2003.
Tan Ping Koon is a Singaporean man who, together with Chua Ser Lien, was charged for the kidnapping of a seven-year-old girl for ransom during Christmas Day of 2003. Tan, who was the owner and manager of a transportation company, had several financial troubles and thus it led to both Tan and Chua to decide to kidnap a child of a wealthy businessman for ransom. The men also demanded a ransom of S$1 million before settling on the final sum of S$70,000 through negotiations. Two days after the crime, both Chua and Tan were arrested and brought to trial for kidnapping for ransom, and after they pleaded guilty to committing the crime, both men were each sentenced to life at Changi Prison and three strokes of the cane by High Court judge Tay Yong Kwang on 9 September 2004.
On 11 April 1989, 56-year-old goldsmith Phang Tee Wah was kidnapped by two men before he was murdered. Despite his death, the kidnappers demanded ransom from Phang's family, who were kept in the dark about Phang's death as they contacted the police about their predicament and the crime. Subsequently, four days after Phang was killed, his corpse was discovered and the police were able to nab the two kidnappers - Phang's former employee Liow Han Heng and security guard Ibrahim bin Masod, who was Liow's friend and driver.
On 24 May 1968, 19-year-old Ong Beang Leck, the son of a millionaire, was last seen leaving his house. His family received a call two days later, being told by the caller that Ong was kidnapped and a ransom of S$100,000 was demanded. After a second phone call in the second week of Ong's disappearance, the ransom was reduced to S$20,000 after negotiations, and it was paid for Ong's safe return. However, after the arrest of one suspect, it was established that Ong was murdered and in the midst of investigations and subsequent capture of four more suspects, Ong's decomposed body was discovered in a manhole at Jurong. Five of the suspects were charged in relation to their roles in the kidnapping and murder of the youth, with three hanged for murder while the remaining two were jailed for abetting the abduction and possession of the ransom money as well.
On 8 January 2014, 79-year-old Ng Lye Poh, the mother of the Sheng Siong supermarket chain's founder CEO, was kidnapped by two men for a S$20 million ransom. The next day, shortly after the ransom was paid and Ng's release, the two kidnappers – Heng Chen Boon and Lee Sze Yong – were arrested and charged with kidnapping for ransom, an offence that carries the death penalty in Singapore, where kidnapping was considered an extremely rare crime. Eventually, one of the perpetrators, Heng, was jailed for three years on a reduced charge of abetting wrongful abduction, while Lee, who was the mastermind of the case, was found guilty of kidnapping for ransom and sentenced to life imprisonment and three strokes of the cane on 1 December 2016.
